The Chronicler of the Normandy
by servantofclio
Summary: Turian military units record the names and deeds of their own. Garrus has taken on this duty for the crew of the Normandy, much to Shepard's surprise.


_I should have started this before. Someone should have been keeping track, even if half of what we did would have to remain classified. But I didn't want to overstep, so I didn't, and no one else would have thought of it. _

_When the first Normandy was lost, twenty crew members died. I regret to say I did not know them well enough to record their contributions. I record their names here, so that they can be remembered. Jamin Bakari. Germeen Barrett. Addison Chase. Silas Crosby. Rosamund Draven. Talitha Draven. Alexei Dubyansky. Hector Emerson. Robert Felawa. Harvey J. Gladstone. Caroline Grenado. Marcus Grieco. Orden Laflamme. Helen M. Lowe. Monica Negulesco. Abishek Pakti. Mandira Rahman. Raymond Tanaka. Carlton Tucks. Amina Waaberi._

_There are a few I knew well enough to remember properly. _

_Kaidan Alenko was a skilled marine and a gifted biotic. He never complained, even though it was clear that the early-generation implants he was using frequently caused him significant physical pain. A skilled field medic, he kept more than one of us from succumbing to blood loss in the field. He helped save the lives of the human colonists at Zhu's Hope. He died with great honor on the planet Virmire, activating a bomb that was essential to eliminating Saren's research facility there. _

_Charles Pressly served as Navigator and Executive Officer after Shepard assumed command of the Normandy. He exercised those functions honorably and fairly, in spite of the addition of non-humans crew. He was a Systems Alliance veteran of long and distinguished service._

_Shepard… _

_I don't know how to record Shepard's deeds here. It seems as though they should have been recorded, but… since she's back now, I'll defer writing about her for now. In fact, I hope that's an entry I'll never have to write._

"Garrus? What is this?"

"What is what?"

_I never thought I would see an honorable man working for Cerberus, but Jacob Taylor was it. He came to Cerberus out of disillusionment with the politics of Council space. He helped Shepard escape from Lazarus Station and proved himself an able and loyal crew member on numerous missions. When attacking the Collector Base, he volunteered for the dangerous job of infiltrating the vents. Though he survived that task, he died soon after, victim of a Collector's missile. _

"This." Shepard waved a datapad in his direction. Garrus crossed his arms.

"That looks like any other datapad, Shepard. I'm going to need a little more information to answer your question."

Shepard frowned at him and adjusted her crutches, turning the datapad on. She was going to be really glad when she could walk unassisted. "All right, smartass, since you insist," she said, picked an entry at random, and started reading.

_Dr. Mordin Solus had retired from an honored, though classified, carer with STG to run a medical clinic on Omega. Just before joining the crew, he developed a cure to a terrible plague which was decimating the station, affecting nearly every species. A brilliant scientist, Mordin Solus developed a countermeasure to the Collectors' seeker swarms, enabling the Commander and the rest of the Normandy crew to relieve the colony of Horizon, as well as invade the Collector Base itself. Mordin put an end to cruel and painful experiments among the krogan of Tuchanka. He did much to analyze the data retrieved from the Collector Base. After leaving the crew, he worked behind the scenes to develop a cure for the genophage. He ultimately sacrificed himself to see the cure completed and distributed to the entire population of Tuchanka, securing an alliance between krogan and turians that was crucial to the war effort._

Garrus groaned, suddenly no longer cocky. "You weren't supposed to see that, Shepard. Give me that back." He reached out one long arm, but Shepard pulled it away, taking one awkward step back.

"Ah-ah! Why am I not supposed to see this? It's about my crew, isn't it?"

"Shepard, it's—" Garrus made another grab for the datapad, and Shepard yanked it out of reach again, narrowly avoiding falling over. Garrus ended up steadying her with an arm around her shoulders.

"Now look what you almost did," she said, with a teasing smile, but Garrus was busy looking at the wall, the floor, or anywhere but actually at her. "Hey," she said, softer, "what's wrong?"

"It's not done yet," he muttered, stepping back and running a hand over his fringe. "I'm still working on it."

Shepard arched an eyebrow. "It sure looks done."

"Not all of the entries came out right."

_Thane Krios joined the crew of the Normandy to make amends for his past, so I shall let it remain silent. He was an expert marksman and a skilled combatant. During his time with the Normandy, he halted a murder and prevented a young man from losing his honor. It was he who fired the last shot that destroyed the human Reaper on the Collector Base. Though he left the crew, he retained the spirit of the Normandy, and gave his life to stop an assassin bent on killing the Councilors. _

Shepard frowned at the datapad. "They look fine to me."

Garrus rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, it's not… I just couldn't find the right words."

She looked up at him with a half-smile. "You don't usually have that much trouble finding words, Vakarian. I've heard you and Vega trading stories."

"Talking is different." He shook his head. "Writing is a lot harder than I thought."

_The geth construct called Legion was given its name, fittingly, by EDI, the ship's AI. The name was taken from an old Earth sacred text. When we first encountered Legion, the geth assisted us in fighting husks on a derelict Reaper, while acquiring the IFF device that made it possible to use the Omega-Four relay safely. Though I would not have thought it possible, Shepard befriended the geth, and Legion made an effort to get to know the rest of us. Legion made it possible to reprogram the significant number of geth that followed the Reapers. Legion was also instrumental in the attack on the Collector Base. When Legion left the crew, it took news of the Reapers and of interaction with organics to the geth collective, and they began to prepare for war. When we met the geth again during the war, we found that Legion and the rest of them had been, in essence, taken prisoner by the Reapers. When we freed them, Legion assisted in ending the quarian-geth war, before releasing programming that made it possible for the geth to operate with individual autonomy. Legion's life ended in this effort._

"So what were you doing here?" Shepard asked, her tone softer. Garrus's intense discomfort was only funny for so long. "Making… what, a journal? A record of the crew?"

He shrugged, still not looking at her, mandibles twitching. "I told you before, Shepard. Turian units keep chronicles, histories of their actions. We record the deeds of those who have fallen. I… it's not the sort of thing I was trained for, but… there didn't seem to be anyone else to do it."

_David Anderson commanded the Normandy for only a brief time, but more than deserves to be remembered among the ship's crew. He was captain of the Normandy when it made its first mission to Eden Prime. He personally selected Shepard as his Executive Officer, and promoted her Spectre candidacy. Though he stepped away from active command once Shepard assumed command of the ship, he worked tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure the success of the mission. It was due to his intervention that the ship was able to leave the dock and pursue Saren to Ilos. If he had not done so, we would have been trapped at the dock when Sovereign attacked the Citadel, and would not have had the knowledge we needed to override Sovereign's control of the station. Afterward, Anderson served a term as the human Councilor. He was Shepard's advocate during her trial and incarceration. During the Reaper war, he assumed command of human resistance efforts on Earth. It is impossible to overstate the importance of his contribution to the war effort. Without him, the final allied assault in London would likely have been impossible._

"So you took it on yourself to be our historian," Shepard said.

Garrus looked down, wearing an expression that she could only classify as _sheepish_. "Yeah."

"But you never even showed anyone?"

"Well…" He rubbed his neck again. "I think EDI knew I was doing it. But I didn't think it was ready to show anyone yet… and I wasn't sure how much it would mean to anyone else."

_EDI may have had the strangest history of all the Normandy crew. The Cerberus-engineered AI was installed on the Normandy SR-2 during its construction. She was far more than just a glorified VI or cyberwarfare suite, though. Her support and information gathering were crucial to the success of more than one mission. She saved the ship and crew from attack by the Collector ship, proving her loyalty to her crew and commander over Cerberus. She saved the life of the ship's pilot when Collectors boarded the vessel, though the rest of the crew was taken, and made it possible for us to use the IFF safely to activate the Omega-Four relay and recover the crew. During the war, she acquired an android platform which allowed her to participate more actively in ground missions. In particular, she was key to successfully boarding the Cerberus facility at Cronos Station. Her capacity to relate to the crew, even to empathize, increased exponentially; she even expressed a willingness to sacrifice herself for her pilot and crew, if necessary. She died… or went silent… when the Reapers were destroyed. Tali thinks it may be possible to recover her programming from her blue box, but so far we have not succeeded in doing so._

"So… yeah. I've been keeping a chronicle of the Normandy and its crew."

Shepard flicked back through the entries. "And you've been doing this since… when? Since you rejoined the crew after Omega?"

"Yeah. I was sorry I hadn't done it before, and I didn't want to let the mission get forgotten. Again." He looked down, still fidgeting, and added quietly, "Plus, it gave me something else to think about. Can I have the datapad back now?"

He held out a hand for it, but Shepard reached out and put her hand in his instead. "Thank you."

Garrus gave her a wary look. "What? You're not going to give me shit for this?"

"No! I—" Shepard wanted to say she wouldn't do that, but the memory of more than one past conversation about calibrations or his slightly disturbing affection for his rifle stopped her. "—I'm not going to do that."

_Commander Shepard was_

_No. I can't. Not yet. Not until… we don't know for sure, yet. I can't_

"Actually," she said, in a softer voice, "I really appreciate it."

Garrus looked skeptical. "Really?"

"Yes. I…" She swallowed. "It means a lot to me that you would go to so much effort to make sure everyone was remembered. And you shouldn't worry so much about the words not being right. It looks perfect to me."

"Somebody else could have done a better job."

"Nobody else would have thought to do it," she countered. "And this last one…" She found the place where he'd started her entry and left it unfinished. It left a lump in her throat. She tried to shake it off and put on a smile. "You couldn't give up on me, huh?"

Garrus closed his eyes. "No. Never again. I—" Shepard cut him off by stretching up to plant a kiss on his mouth. Her balance on her bad leg wasn't good enough to stay steady, but she didn't at all mind when she had to lean against him and he put an arm around her to keep her upright.

"What was that for?" Garrus asked when they finally broke for air.

"For remembering," Shepard answered. "Sometimes it seems as though no one but me really remembers all those losses." She gave him another kiss, slower and softer.

"And that one?" he asked, his voice going gravelly.

"That one's just for being you."

* * *

From a prompt on the kinkmeme.


End file.
